This is an excellent review of what happens inside the brain during the application of medication at the levels most of us are cable to achieve easily. The more serious take home that comes out of thuis is that we all need to practice therapeutic meditation on a daily basis by carefully working it into our personal schedules.
It is just too valuable not to.
This gets our understanding of the science out of the anecdotal realm once and for all.
Joe Martino, Collective-Evolution
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/06/16/neuroscientist-explains-happens-brain-meditate/
Meditation is becoming very popular lately. Perhaps it’s the
anecdotal evidence friends are sharing with each other or the fact that
more and more science is coming out to confirm the benefits of
meditation that it’s encouraging people to take up the practice.
Meditation has shown to decrease stress, increase happiness,quality of
life, increase gray matter in the brain, making people more
compassionate, lowering blood pressure, increasing memory and more. A
great series of benefits from such a peaceful practice.
Meditation can be discouraging at times. It’s not easy to calm your
mind, stop the thoughts and get into a space that is quiet. Since many
of us, especially in western culture, are never taught to explore this
practice at a young age it can be even harder to get into a quiet
meditative space realizing that we are not our thoughts or mind. If you
are discouraged you can get some tips here. If you are looking for some great ways to get into meditation, you can check these out.
What Happens When You Meditate?
A group of Harvard neuroscientists came together to study the
benefits of meditation on the brain and how it affects mindfulness. Sara
Lazar enrolled her team of 16 subjects in a 8 week mindfulness program
to see if meditation, over a short period of time, could begin to
create changes in lifestyle and the brain.
The subjects were given a 45 minute guided mindfulness exercise to be
used daily and they were encouraged to do various daily activities with
as much mindfulness as possible. On average the subjects performed
about 27 minutes of mindfulness each day. The results of this study is
discussed below.
Britta Hölzel, the lead author on the paper says, “It
is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing
meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can
increase our well-being and quality of life.”
One of the biggest things that happens to our brains when we meditate
is that it stops processing so much information. Beta waves generally
indicate a processing of information. When beta waves are decreased, we
see a decrease in information processed. Using Magnetic Resonance
Imaging, (MRI) we can see how and where beta waves are decreasing the
most. This is indicated by the color changes in the image below.
MRI images before and after meditation.
Taking things a little deeper, the following areas of the brain were affected by meditation in different ways.
Frontal lobe
This is the most highly evolved part of the brain, responsible for
reasoning, planning, emotions and self-conscious awareness. During
meditation, the frontal cortex tends to go offline.
Parietal lobe
This part of the brain processes sensory information about the
surrounding world, orienting you in time and space. During meditation,
activity in the parietal lobe slows down.
Thalamus
The gatekeeper for the senses, this organ focuses your attention by
funneling some sensory data deeper into the brain and stopping other
signals in their tracks. Meditation reduces the flow of incoming
information to a trickle.
Reticular formation
As the brain’s sentry, this structure receives incoming stimuli and puts
the brain on alert, ready to respond. Meditating dials back the arousal
signal.
“This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may
underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not
just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.” Sarah
Lazar Ph.D., the study’s senior author.”
The video below is a presentation from neuroscientist Sara Lazar about how meditation affects your brain.
Societal Benefits For The Bigger Picture
When we begin to consider the benefits of meditation we can start to
imagine how different our world might look if everyone, or even the
majority of people began practicing meditation more regularly. Could an
increase in mindfulness, happiness, care, and empathy for others make an
impact on our world? How about reduced stress and better memory? As
opposed to many of the practices we do in our society today, drinking,
smoking, drug use, pharmaceuticals for EVERYTHING, television, which are
all seen as generally acceptable, imagine if a portion of the time
spent doing things destructive to our body and mind was replaced with
meditation instead. What might the outcome look like?
Certainly some interesting things to ponder when you realize that
many of the issues we see today in our world on a daily basis stem from a
lack of mindfulness and a take over of egoic individuality where we
lose sight of how our actions might affect others or how we can get
caught up in taking things personally. For example, studies have shown
that meditation makes people connect better with others and feel more
compassionate towards them. Given how many of our daily and worldly
challenges stem from seeing others as a problem to our own lives, isn’t
it fair to say that suddenly seeing beyond these perceived perceptions
and gaining a connection to others could instead create a more peaceful
and joyous reality?
I feel that many of our worlds problems are not necessarily due to
the structures around us presenting limitations but because the
consciousness or mindset that acts as the foundation for our world is
creating this experience. To change our world from the source, a change
in mindset (consciousness or world view) would trigger a different
understanding of how we could live and create our world. Instead of
simply operating from belief and programming as we do today, we could
strip that away and create from a space connected with our hearts and
true selves, something I believe would drastically change our world.
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